Ethereum core developers set tentative date for “Berlin” hard fork

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  • Leading Ethereum developers have set a tentative date for the implementation of the Berlin hard fork for January 2021.
  • Despite the proposal, the restructuring of the Ethereum fee mechanism with EIP-1559 will not be included.

In the latest bi-weekly call from Ethereum Core developers, several proposals for the blockchain were discussed. Among these, one of the most important was the Berlin hard fork. After delaying the hard fork in the middle of the year, it appears that the update could take place a few weeks after the deployment of the beacon chain which has a tentative date for the end of November.

Berlin is an update for the current “Ethereum 1.0” blockchain that works with proof of work. Berlin aims to make improvements to the blockchain while building on Ethereum’s proof-of-stake 2.0 blockchain. The hard fork will be next after Istanbul, rolled out to the main network in January.

The update was postponed to the end of June due to its “critical dependency” on the geth client. An error in the client could have caused a complete failure of the Ethereum blockchain. Therefore, the developers decided to wait for the implementation of a multi-client fork.

At the call from the developer, Eth 2.0 coordinator Danny Ryan said the Berlin deployment was subject to development in critical areas. Additionally, consent, notification time, and rollout will be required to meet its early release in 2021. Developer Tim Beiko also provided a summary of the meeting via Twitter and he wrote the following:

This is a rough estimate, but if we didn’t think about the BLS curves, it is likely that we could release Berlin around mid-January. Again, this assumes that everything is fine, that we have consensus on everything, etc. Basically it’s the implementation time + notice required to get it right.

Changes in the Ethereum Berlin hard fork

According to the original plan, Berlin was supposed to introduce 3 EIPs: EIP-2315, EIP-2929, EIP-2537. The first should add simple subroutines for the Ethereum virtual machine. The other two suggest adding a gas cost increase for state access operating codes and operating curves BLS12-381 respectively.

However, EIP 2537 will no longer be included in Berlin. EIP would have made it easier for the Eth 2.0 blockchain and the Eth 1.x blockchain to talk to each other using a similar cryptographic setup. The other two EIPs will be included in a short-lived testnet called “YOLO v3” scheduled for release in the coming weeks. In order to keep a timetable for introducing changes that will not occur with Berlin, Beiko indicated that the developers have agreed on the following:

(…) The decision is that, unless something changes in the next two weeks, the EIP-2537 is out of YOLOv3 and not in Berlin, and we are moving forward with the rest of the EIPs in YOLOv3.

Another proposal that will not be introduced with Berlin is EIP-1559. One of the most commented on during the DeFi industry boom due to high network fees, the EIP-1559 proposes a change in Ethereum’s fee mechanism. However, for now, applications are being asked to take advantage of tier two scaling solutions to improve and reduce costs when using Ethereum. Therefore, EIP-1559 has been removed from the list for now.

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